


stop for a minute (and be by your side)

by PinkCanary



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Multi, Pre-OT3, Pre-Relationship, can be read as platonic if you prefer, swpolyamoryweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6636994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkCanary/pseuds/PinkCanary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes the First Order a few extra hours to find Finn and Rey on Jakku.</p><p>(Bonds still forged in fire, though maybe not <i>quite</i> as hot.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	stop for a minute (and be by your side)

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Star Wars Polyamory Week, day 6 - canon divergence. 
> 
> Also, I'm not sure who started having BB-8 referring to people as "Friend" but I'm using it so THANK YOU WHOEVER IT WAS.
> 
> Title is from "Hold Back the River" by James Bay.

It’s not that she’s self-conscious about her home. She secured it all on her own -- traded several weeks worth of supplies for it -- and has defended it fiercely. In any case, it is a marked improvement on the first place that she lived on Jakku, a patch of floor that she shared with Unkar Plutt’s other young scavengers in a rough shelter that let in the cold and the creatures that roam the desert at night. At least here she can guard her things, meagre as they are, and she doesn’t wake up countless times a night, unable to press her back against a solid surface for defense.

Still, the way that the Resistance fighter is looking at her walker makes her spine prickle with unease. 

She’d really had no choice but to bring him back to her home, with night setting in and no way to get him and BB-8 off planet. Rey is not in the habit of picking up strays, but she already can’t help feeling partially responsible for BB-8. Especially now that the droid is uncharacteristically quiet and reserved, mourning the loss of the owner that it had been so sure was coming back for it. 

She can’t help feeling a kinship with it; no matter how much she tries not to.

Now, the droid is pushing ahead of her, rolling straight into the walker and settling itself in the corner where it had spent the night before. Clearly at home.

The Resistance fighter eyes BB-8 warily. “This is…” he pauses, as if trying to come up with a tactful way to finish the sentence. “This is where you live,” he finally decides on, and his face is unreadable. 

“It is,” she says, terse, even though she knows that his statement was not a question. She refuses to apologize or feel self conscious for what she has. Has never felt the need, until this very moment.

But, he seems to get it. He steps into the walker, ducking his head slightly as he enters the small ‘room’. His fingers linger over the rusty metal hull as he steps farther into the space.

The uncomfortable feeling of _deficiency_ won’t leave her, and so Rey turns away; busies herself with preparing her dinner, while he examines her home while trying to look like he isn’t. She only has one half-portion for the two of them -- and this is why she doesn’t make a habit of taking in strays -- but she’s survived on a quarter portion before, and she’ll do it again today.

Still, even though she makes more noise than necessary, banging around the small collection of metal vessels that she uses as dishes, she doesn’t miss the way that his breath catches in his chest when he spies the marks along the wall.

Her fingers are itching to add another one, but she’ll wait until he’s gone. Can’t bear for him to see her ritual. It feels almost like an _intrusion_ , having him here. 

“You’re waiting for something,” he says, abrupt, and BB-8 chirps a quiet affirmative for her. 

She knows she doesn’t owe him anything, but she answers anyway. “My family.”

He nods, but his eyes are soft and she looks away before she can see the sympathy in them. “They’re coming back?”

“Yeah.” Because of course they are. There isn’t any other option. 

And he has no response for that.

*

They eat their dinner outside the walker, wordlessly watching as a ship takes off in the distance. The Resistance fighter only nibbles at his meal, before passing it back to her with a look that tries for casual, but misses the mark by a fair margin. 

“I ate this morning,” he says, and Rey has no reason to doubt his words, but she also doesn’t miss the way that his stomach growls eagerly as he watches her eat his share.

“I don’t know your name,” she says, suddenly realizing.

A dark look crosses his face for a moment, before it clears. “Finn,” he says, decisively. “I’m Finn.”

“I’m Rey,” she says, and when he meets her eyes the next time, she sees genuine warmth.

*

There’s nothing to be done until morning.

Finn has nothing but Poe’s jacket on his shoulders -- no credits, nothing to trade. He looks strong and able, and it’s almost certain that he will be able to barter his way on to a ship in exchange for work, but it might take a few days -- weeks, even -- to find someone in need of his skills. 

He does not look pleased when she mentions this.

“I know that you and BB-8 need to get back to the Resistance, but if you don’t have a way to contact them, you’re going to be at the mercy of the pilots coming in and out of Niima Outpost,” she says, practical. She can’t say that she’s entirely happy that the droid will be leaving her; it’s good company, if nothing else. But BB-8 seems even more determined than ever to complete it’s master’s mission, and Finn is practically vibrating with nervous energy. Desperate to be away from Jakku.

She can’t entirely blame him, honestly.

“I’ll take first watch while you sleep,” Rey tells him. 

What she doesn’t tell him is that there is no possible way she’ll be able to sleep with him in her walker. That’s she’ll be watching _him_ more than for the things that prowl outside at night. 

But, Finn doesn’t say anything about _that_. “You’ll wake me in a few hours?” He asks, and she nods, despite knowing that it is a complete lie. Still, he just curls up in a corner of the walker, and she hears his breath even out within minutes. She almost envies him the ease at which he drops off; even if the stiff rigid posture that he holds himself in, even in sleep, is a bit unnerving. 

She’s settled in, preparing herself for a long night, when she hears a quiet whirring next to her side. She can’t see BB-8 in the dark of the walker, but he nudges gently against her, silent solidarity against the darkness.

*

Which is why she almost jumps out of her skin when the droid suddenly jolts to life hours later, his shrill beeping almost deafening in the small space. 

On the other side of the walker, Finn is sitting up. “What’s going on?” he asks, his voice sleepy, at the same time that she says, “what is it?”

But BB-8 is frantic -- almost impossible to translate, though she catches the words “Poe” and “outside” and she suddenly gets it. She jumps to her feet, and Finn moves to copy her, though clearly having no idea why.

“BB-8 says that he’s been scanning the area around us, and that Poe is outside,” she says, breathless, and the droid beeps at her in frenzied agreement.

Rey isn’t sure exactly what she’s expecting when she opens the hatch on the walker, but she can’t make out much in the inky darkness of the desert. Still, BB-8 rolls out of the walker, chirping shrilly into the blackness, before disappearing entirely. Rey can’t help cringing; wondering what or who else they’re alerting of their presence. 

However, a second later they hear a voice calling out to them. “Bee-bee?” asks the voice -- presumably that of Poe Dameron. 

That assumption is immediately confirmed when BB-8 starts to trill, loud and filled with elation, and a second later both the droid and his master come into the range of Rey’s vision. The man is disheveled; sand and grime coating his clothes and skin, hair flat on one side and sticking straight out on the other. Still, he's smiling in a way that immediately puts Rey at ease, even if it hadn't been for BB-8's obvious glee at seeing the man alive and well.

The droid circles Poe excitedly, bumping into his knees in what Rey can recognize as a gesture of companionship. She can’t help smiling at his antics, and the way that Poe is grinning widely down at the droid. 

Even if it makes something in her chest throb, just a little. She won’t think about that. Can’t.

Suddenly, Finn calls out. “Poe Dameron!” he shouts, just before he throws his arms around the other man, who just barely manages to avoid being knocked over. He’s stunned for just a moment, before wrapping his own arms around Finn eagerly.

“Finn! _Buddy!_ You found my droid!” he says, his voice clearly exhausted, but no less filled with excitement. 

“I thought you were dead,” Finn says, when he pulls back enough to look Poe in the face.

“I thought _you_ were dead,” Poe answers. “I woke up and it was dark and the wreckage was nowhere in sight.” He looks dazed, like he can’t quite believe that this is all real. “But you’re alive, and you found BB-8!”

“Actually, Rey found BB-8,” Finn corrects, and for the first time, Poe’s attention turns toward her. Next to him, BB-8 is letting out a string of beeps and she doesn’t mistranslate when BB-8 clearly refers to her as, ‘Friend-Rey, the Droid Saver’.

Poe is grinning widely at her, and Rey can feel herself flushing at the weight of his smile combined with BB-8’s effusive praise. “Well, thank you, Rey.”

Finn is smiling too, when she turns to him, and he looks lighter than before. Hopeful, for maybe the first time since she met him. Like everything is clearly going to be alright, now that Poe is here and alive. 

Honestly, she can feel it, too.

*

If three was a crowd inside her walker, four somehow feels more… _comfortable_. Rey doesn’t know if it’s that the weight of BB-8 and Finn’s shared grief has been shed, or if it’s somehow just _Poe_ , but the atmosphere is just different. 

Undefinably so.

Poe is clearly exhausted, and he collapses almost as soon as they are inside, leaning heavily against BB-8. “I’m just gonna…” he starts, before trailing off, his eyes drooping. BB-8 is pressed against him, and if Rey didn’t know better, she would swear that she heard the droid make a pleased whirring sound not unlike a purr. 

Finn has already retreated back to the corner where he had been sleeping earlier, and Rey is left standing in the middle of her own home, at a loss for what to do. Just one day earlier she had taken in a wayward droid, and now there were _three_ of them in her life. Taking up space in the margins of her walker.

 _I will take first watch, Friend-Rey_ , BB-8 chirps at her, quiet so as to not disturb Poe. 

And honestly, she finds it easier than she would have imagined to drift off to sleep, sharing her space with these three.

*

“That’s my jacket,” Poe says, blinking at Finn in surprise as his eyes adjust to the bright Jakku morning sun once they step outside the walker. 

Finn let’s out an awkward -- almost embarrassed -- ‘oh!’ before starting to slide it down off of his shoulders.

“No,” Poe says, his voice warm and please. “Keep it. It suits you.”

The wink, though. That, he sends in Rey’s direction.

Much to her surprise, she kind of likes it.

*

(Rey’s life changes just a few hours later.

“They saw you with us. You’re marked. You have to come with us.” Finn says, looking almost apologetic.

“Thanks for that,” she responds, dryly. But she actually can’t bring herself to be too upset about the whole thing. Might even be pleased, if they weren’t currently _running for their lives_.

“What about that ship?” Finn asks, and he gestures towards the ancient Corellian freighter. 

“That one’s garbage!”

“No,” Poe says, and his lips are turning up with just the slightest look of _awe_. “That one is a legend.”)


End file.
